On January 28, 1992, John Cage delivered a series of lectures at Stanford University in Palo Alto California in early 1992, just a few months before his death. Representing his last major writing, “Overpopulation and Art” is a mesostic poem that covers a wide variety of Cage’s concern’s, from the implications of technology on the environment to the role of art in society. Although often remembered as a radical composer of aleatoric music, John Cage was also a extremely intelligent man, who remained curious about most aspects of life, be it scientific, artistic, political, or philosophical. Unrelentingly optimistic about humanity’s potential and yet painfully aware of faults, Cage’s concluding word’s in which he describes the arc of ones’ achievements from “failure to failure, until the final victory,” serves as a fitting epitaph for this incredible man’s life.

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